


Listen Closer This Last Time

by Theo (justic3ord34th)



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Vault of Glass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:38:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justic3ord34th/pseuds/Theo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Vault of Glass bends time in ways the human mind is not prepared to comprehend in its entirety. Last time failure struck early and quickly. This time it was delayed. Next time may bring success. Or it may be the last time. The Vault is unpredictable, first and foremost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen Closer This Last Time

I go by Theo, usually. Most people know me that way. Some call me the Unbroken. Not sure why. They seem to think going toe-to-ethereal-rag with some Hive Wizard clutching the remains of a broken old pistol alone and coming back alive means you need a title. The gun wasn't even worth the fight if I'm being honest. Maybe it would be now, but back then it was just a pretty prize to look at and reminisce over.

Not that it matters either way. I'm introducing myself because I don't know how else to do this. I'm a Titan of the 21st Brotherhood, dedicated to protecting the city, yada yada, you probably think you know more than I do about anything I have to say about my duty. Especially if you're a Hunter. Not that all Hunters are bad, it's just most of you lot are frustratingly smug for someone who wears next to no armor.

At least Warlocks have those long coats. Most of them, anyway. You could hide a good-size gun under a coat that long. The Fallen wouldn't even see the Gjallarhorn until you brought it out and unloaded point-blank. Why wouldn't you? Warlocks don't die, not even when you disintegrate their body or fill their skulls with buckshot.

Ghost, don't transcribe all of this. It's mostly banter. I don't want to bore whoever's listening with my personal views on my brothers and sisters in the Light. Even if I did, it's only healthy rivalry. You need some of that, especially fighting a war. Keeps you sharp. Keeps you on your toes. Go ahead and leave it if you want, I'm in no condition to tell you otherwise at this point. Maybe they'll remember me less as a martyr if they see that.

Just to clarify – I am no martyr. Fighting for your cause, dying for it, that doesn't make you a martyr. Matyrdom is for the realm of belief, of what you think is worth dying for. I'm not dying for what I believe in or for what I think is worth snuffing out over. I'm dying because I just didn't _know_. Next time I hope I do. I hope this works.

 

We were on Mars when the word came down about the Black Garden, 'we' being myself and King. King's a Hunter, an Exo, not that race matters anymore. Good man. Might still be alive. If you see him tell him Theo said sorry. Anyway, we were on Mars at the time they killed the Heart of the Garden. Word came through on our Ghosts about the victory. We didn't need the Speaker to tell us. The Vex started acting up right away. Hobgoblins stopped fighting, just stood there a minute and scanned the empty space in front of them like they'd lost something. King said that was about what it amounted to. Whatever those Guardians did in there it disrupted the Vex something terrible.

We weren't the only ones who noticed, either. We were there doing recon – well, he was, I was there in case his little Hunter ass got in trouble with the Cabal. Nothing like some AP LDR downrange to make a Phalanx think twice about heading that charge. Anyway, the Cabal took notice, mounted a huge counteroffensive. See, the Vex have been working down the Cabal, which is saying something. I've seen Centurions smash through concrete walls like they were cheap tissue and wipe out half a fireteam with those slug rifles, but the Vex kept them back.

Probably had to do with the numbers of 'em. Vex don't stop coming more often than not. Whenever you think they stop it's likely just because they're coming from a new angle, or a different time. I've blown the head off of a Goblin chassis only to have the same damn one come charge me down a week later in some crater on Venus.

I wonder what the Vex know about me. I wonder what they think when they see me. Oh, no! Maybe. Here comes that Titan! Better get him before he brings up that shotgun!

Shit, where was I? Right. The Cabal launched a counteroffensive. They'd been worn down for years, probably, chipped at by the Vex, one by one. That day they took full advantage of the confusion in the Vex net and made it rain fire on Mars. When I say 'rain fire' I don't mean a heavy artillery strike. I mean fifty-plus Cabal dropships flying in tight formation bathing the sands with heavy solar bombardment. Never seen King move that fast, even for a Hunter.

Once they were done, skies clear, King said we oughta go back to the Tower. I asked why. He said there wasn't any reason to stay. Nothing else to recon out there. The Cabal had cleaned house. I took his word for it. Exos tend to know machinery pretty innately.

Back at the Tower we hear that Mars in general is pretty much getting swallowed by chaos. The Cabal took the fight to the Vex in a hard way, spearheaded by a Cabal commander named Valus Ta'aurc. Vanguard didn't take too long to organize a strike targeting him. Had to keep the Cabal reeling, couldn't let them build up momentum. Cabal are like boulders in shape and design. Big, heavy, slow, but once they get moving they're a damn sight to see and almost impossible to stop without a hell of an effort.

The assault on the Siege Dancers and their Land Tank at the edge of Freehold was that effort. I signed up for it. I don't like the Cabal, but I love to kill 'em. Pop those little helmets right off, watch them gasp and grope. Easy as pie, too, just nail the base right at the front, pop goes the space weasel. The fight was messy, though. They had a lot of momentum, and the other Titan with me was too green to be fighting Cabal Legionnaries in full bloodlust. There was a Warlock but she didn't say much. Kept her fusion rifle handy. Never seen one charge that quick out of the holster. I can respect a Warlock who knows when to shut up.

That Titan, though. Defender. Not part of the 21st. Too ballsy for his own good. Seemed half-asleep even as we battered our way through a whole company of Cabal. Two Colossi, three Centurions, two dozen Legionnaires, twelve Psions. All he did was mumble, yawn, and shoot. I told him an auto rifle didn't have the punch to get through Cabal armor. He said it was for the shields, my LDR could do for the armor.

He died trying to use his barrier to survive a tank rush. Didn't work. Smashed his Ghost too. I wonder where that little one wound up after I brought it back to the Speaker.

We tracked down Ta'aurc and killed him, that Warlock and I. She spoke a little after the kid died. Said the City would miss a Titan. I told her that the City could do without that one. I regret saying that now. We need every single one we've got.

The only reason I tell you any of this is because you need to understand why I am where I am. I was too brazen. Too confident. When you face the Darkness do so with a measure of unease. Steel yourself against it, but understand it can overwhelm you before you even realize it. It's stronger than any single Titan, smarter than any single Warlock, quicker than any single Hunter. Walk with your brothers and sisters in the Light. The more Light, the brighter it shines.

Everyone knew the legend of the Vault of Glass. The 21st Brotherhood knew Kabr. Every Titan should. The Legionless. He walked alone, but he had company all the while. I can't make you understand it unless you see it, and I wouldn't want anyone to see what I've seen. Kabr was fractured. Aetheon saw him approach, let him come with his fireteam, and then he shattered Kabr and Praedyth and Errata. They all died, but not all at once, and they haven't yet. They will, and they haven't. It's impossible to explain.

We didn't know. We had no idea.

The Vanguard asked for the bravest of us to storm the Vault. No more than six, no less than four. Six of us went. Me, King-132, that Warlock. Her name was Queen, I think. She knew King somehow. Plus three more. I remember one, a Titan we just called the Captain. A good man. Strong. He guided us in. Another Warlock who went by Cirux-5. A third Titan who could have been Wei Ning for all I know. I remember making a joke about it. Send three Titans instead of one, we'll get results. Nobody laughed at the time or after. King told me to shut up.

Cracking open the Vault of Glass isn't all that difficult. Oh, sure, the Vex put up a hell of a fight. Waves of Minotaurs, Hobgoblins, Harpies, there's plenty of resistance, but they don't actually care if any Guardians make it inside. They'd send out Hydras if they really wanted us to stay out. That's when you know a target is valuable, when it's something they want to protect. They didn't care enough to send the Hydras. We should have known then that we were in over our heads.

Captain took it as a good sign. We raised the Spire, broke open the Vault, and rushed in before the Vex could stop us. He kept us moving. We tended our hurts—none major yet—and pressed on, down along the unnatural cubes and across gaps that dropped off god-only-knows how deep. Maybe to the core of Venus, maybe they have no end. Our Ghosts didn't know, couldn't tell us. Queen ventured a guess that the pits were sort of like black holes. If you drop in too deep then time stops to have any meaning as it's more and more distorted by Vex networks. None of us had much to say to that.

It wasn't long before we encountered the Oracles and their Templar. This was where things started to get really... bad, for lack of a better word. Cirux-5 said that the Oracles had tethers to the temporal reality governing our local patch of space, and the Templar had the juice they needed to change that reality. I'm not sure what that really means, but when a Warlock bursts into flame and tells you to shoot that damn light cube you tend to not stop and ask why. At least not until after the fact.

As for the Templar, it was a huge Hydra chassis. Know what that means? We were finally somewhere the Vex didn't want us to be. Fighting something that the Vex meant to kill us. Turns out it was pretty damn good at it, too. Queen was a Sunsinger, and lucky for us. That first time when we got trapped in casuality bubbles or whatever I vaporized myself with a rocket. The others were killed by the Templar and its time manipulation. Queen came back on her own. Broke the bubble. Lent us her Light, gave us a chance.

Thank you, Queen. You won't understand until way after the fact. Hopefully never at all.

We only killed the Templar thanks to Kabr. It doesn't make sense, right? Didn't to me. All I knew was when I came back, when my Ghost used Queen's surge of Light and gave me another life I had something in my hands that hadn't been there before. I heard a voice. Use the Aegis. Use my fury. Break the Templar with your Light. So I did. Titans are good at following orders. Kabr knew that. Knew it well. It's why he was the Legionless. It's why he gave the Aegis to me.

It broke the Templar's shield, and we broke the Templar with our weapons and our Light. The Aegis vanished after that. I'm not sure where. We had a minute to breathe, though, and that's when we realized that Cirux-5 was down. Shredded by a Harpy, Ghost caught a slap bolt through the core. And then there were five.

We should have turned back there. Captain said we could still finish this. Said that the Vanguard only needed four, we still had five. If we wanted to turn back he'd follow us, we're in it together. Nobody wanted to let down the Captain. We all let our pride and our faith in the Light blind us. We pressed onward and downward, deeper and deeper into the crust of Venus, plummeting hundreds of feet, so far we lost contact with the warsats in high orbit above the planet and cut off our own lifelines. Not that we still had them anyway. All we ever heard on the radio were transmissions from a time none of us recognized.

That got us to here. I can see the Captain from where I'm hiding. He's laying on top of the rocks next to the stream. His helmet is gone. So is his head. The Gorgon took it off with a single lash when it spotted him, right before Queen told us to start shooting. At least he died quick. I always liked the Captain. I hope next time he survives. I hope next time none of us come here.

King bolted. Fast even for a Hunter. He took off up a rock spire, probably still up there watching the patterns, learning the paths the Gorgons are taking. Queen died trying to kill that first one, caught a shell to the back of the head. Don't know who shot it. Wei Ning-or-whoever-the-hell ran too, probably hiding in the caves not too far away. The Gorgons are searching. The Vex are patient. Time isn't an obstacle here, not in the Vault where it bends and twists around these damned machines.

They'll find me soon, and I'll die. I don't know if we ever got this far before. If we did it this time we can do it again. I just hope whoever finds this, whenever they find it, brings it to me or to King or anyone else I've mentioned and tell them not to go anywhere near the Vault of Glass, let the Cabal steamroll the Vex, because as bad as the Cabal are the Vex are foes beyond our comprehension and preparedness. And if we come here, if we end up here even with the warning, just tell us to keep our heads on a swivel and trust nothing of what we see.

I only wish I'd listened before. I'm sorry, Ghost. I should have listened.

Go, now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not completely comfortable with first-person, but I wanted to capture the rambling, organic feel of the Grimoire card entries. I think I did alright.


End file.
